An image processing apparatus includes a storage and processing circuitry. The storage is configured to store a dither table in which a plurality of dither patterns are recorded, each of the dither patterns being formed with a halftone dot screen in which an output area ratio that is a proportion of void halftone dots per unit area corresponds to any one of gradation values of image data. The processing circuitry is configured to read a gradation value for each region in image data input for each toner color, decide a dither pattern to be applied to the read gradation value, read out the decided dither pattern from the dither table, and perform dither processing of applying the read dither pattern to the region in the image data.